Petroleum Perfection

Do you remember being a kid and spotting an oil spill on the pavement? They were fascinating! Those swirling rainbows didn’t seem to make any sense to my child sized brain. What left it? Why did it look like that? How? To be honest, it still doesn’t make sense, and I refuse to read up on it as it would spoil the illusion that maybe it is just little teensy bit of magic. Magic that smells a bit like a petrol station…

I have just gotten back from a long stay in the UK, more on that later, and on my last day there I spotted some of that old childhood magic. On a pair of shoes. In fact, the best shoes I have seen in many moons. I was in & Other Stories (my favorite shop to tip toe around for a bit longer than socially allowed), and needless to say the shoes were way out of my league. Their coolness factor 11, their practicality near nil and the price wincingly high. But if shoes are so wrong, but still so damn right are they not meant to be yours? If they regress you to your 6 year old self, staring at the pavement like it held all the answers to life’s mysteries, while making you look cooler than you really are is it not wrong to leave them behind? Well, I thought this, on my last night in London I decided; They would be mine. I had the plan, I would wake up early, pack in a rush and quickly dash into the Oxford Street branch with an excuse to pick up a pair of near sold out shoes for a friend, and “end up” getting them as well. I planned how I would take care of the leather, fantasized about purchasing leather conditioner, and pondered on how best to clean marks from patent leather. These shoes and I were going to be together, forever and ever. They would age beautifully and would share late nights and long city walks with me. And so on, and so on.

The next morning I woke up by my best friend Panda screaming that I was going to miss my flight. Needless to say the shoes remain in & Other Stories, and I just made my plane. Now, having checked if they exist online, I have discovered another model. And my little 6 year old brain is confused. Which are “the ones”? Perfect oxfords with beetle winged toes? Or nod-to-Chanel toe cap-ankle boots? I intend to find out tomorrow, if the Stockholm branch stocks both pairs…